Protecting our own

Hadiya Pendleton represented "what is best in this city," Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday.

She was killed by what is worst in this city: unpredictable, out-of-control gun violence.

News of her death — the 42nd homicide this year in Chicago — spurred a palpable sense of anguish, fury and frustration. Chicago is galvanized. Angry.

And battle-scarred. We've been here before.

On Sept. 30, 2009, on this page, we wrote about the death of Derrion Albert. An honors student, he was walking home from Fenger High School when he got caught in a confrontation between two rival groups. He was kicked, stomped and smacked with a wooden plank. A bystander captured every excruciating blow on a cellphone camera. Derrion died a short time later. He was the third teenager killed in Chicago that month.

His death, like Hadiya's, shamed this city.

How familiar is this anguish? From that 2009 editorial, "Roster of the lost:"

Each year, street carnage casually snuffs out the life of young Chicagoans by the hundreds. But because most of the bloodshed reddens only select and impoverished neighborhoods, the public's response typically ranges from oblivious to mildly mournful: An alderman laments, a preacher scolds, a community marches in frustration — and then on to the next.

On occasion, though, the slaughter of a youth engages and enrages Chicago and, for a time, the violence ebbs. Recollect how four murders of the last quarter-century lifted this city from torpor:

1984: Two teenagers bent on robbery gunned down Benjamin Wilson, a high-profile basketball prodigy, as he left Simeon High School. Wilson's celebrity made him a unique victim at a time when street violence already was escalating. Mayor Harold Washington demanded action. In response, state government, the City Council, the United Way and the Archdiocese of Chicago poured millions of dollars into youth and anti-gang programs. Police and prosecutors toughened their tactics, and street-corner mediators tried to interrupt cycles of gang violence. The result: Over the next year, Chicago cut youth homicides by 38 percent.

1992: The slaying of 7-year-old Dantrell Davis by a sniper who couldn't shoot straight at enemy gangbangers similarly caught Chicago's — America's — attention. Neither police officers stationed near Jenner Elementary School nor the volunteer parent patrol watching for trouble, nor the boy's mother who tightly held his hand as they crossed a street, could shield him from gang combat at the Cabrini-Green housing complex. Chicagoans again voiced their fury — but eventually moved on.

1994: Five-year-old Eric Morse allegedly had refused to steal candy for two boys, ages 10 and 11. So they abducted him and dangled him from a window in a public housing building. Eric's brother, 8, tried to pull him back inside. The older boys wouldn't have it. Eric Morse spent his last seconds tumbling 14 stories to the ground. America recoiled. Chicago, in time, forgot.

2007: Witnesses told police that, as a gunman on their CTA bus opened fire, 16-year-old Blair Holt protectively pushed a friend down into a seat. A security camera caught the instant he was shot — hands in front of his abdomen, palms out, as if trying to push something away. Paramedics said the Julian High School student had but one request: that they tell his parents that he loved them. Three days later his father, Ronald, a police officer assigned to a gang unit, told Chicago: 'It seems like we're besieged with what I call neighborhood terrorists.'

Neighborhood terrorists still torment this city. With the "pop, pop, pop" of a gun Tuesday afternoon, one of them slaughtered an innocent girl who was, as Emanuel said, the goodness of Chicago. She was shot in the back. She slumped to the ground and died within an hour at a local hospital.

So will we be mildly mournful this time, and then move on? We have shown through our history that that doesn't have to be the case. We have shown that unspeakable tragedy can move this city to curb violence.

It will take more than new policing strategies. It will take more than new gun laws. It will take the collective engagement of this city's citizens. Mentor a teenager, tutor at a local school, volunteer at an after-school program. Cooperate with police; speak up when you know something about a crime.

Care.

We've been here before, far too many times. Chicago has shown that it can respond, that it can win the battle on its streets, that it can drive down violence. But it's far too easy, when it's not your child, simply to move on to the next.